I am getting used to that Lockheed Martin Corporation sniffing around my blog though it mystifies me why they are reading a stay at home mummy's investigations of big oil and gas. Is it because they are also involved in big oil and gas? I don't want to investigate Lockheed Martin Corporation.

I have enough reading to do as it is and it seems that corruption is everywhere I look. The only miracle is why I didn't know about all of this junk before. Could mind control be in effect? I mean I thought I was fairly intelligent and although I was whining at the Tories since the Klein dolt was put in as a figurehead for the CAPP folks--I never thought that democracy was kitty litter until the moment I had contact with the Education Minister via e-mails and it became clear to me that the folks we had hired were actually paper bags full of hot air.

In other words, the folks we have in government are empty representatives. We are paying them to screw up everything. I am sorry but we made some very bad decisions as citizens. But it wasn't just our fault. We had help from a collaborative media group that either caved into heavy pressure and didn't do their jobs in a functional democracy or we had folks getting enough profit to keep their news all fuzzy and stupid.

We had a media in Alberta that was also CAPP run just as we had a government (and continue to have a government) that is CAPP run. The AER is also CAPP run.

Heck it is going to be hard for me to find anyone or any institution that isn't CAPP run. I no longer believe in the government that we have hired at any level. I think the RCMP has no way to be respected by Albertans if they go around bullying ordinary folks for justifiable complaining to the non-existent governance bodies for the pollution of their air, land and water. I don't think the judicial system is doing its job if judges roll over for promotions so that Harper can cherry pick a judge for Jessica Ernst's law suit against EnCana. I don't believe in the Senate and its hoggish entitled Senators who have won the lottery and can do what our elected hires can't --which is endure to the bitter end on the teat of the taxpayer. And most of all I do not believe in Mandel, Redford and the Harper guy. They are all folks who should be ashamed to be called representatives of the 99% of ordinary citizens.

They do represent someone alright. They represent themselves and their 1% friends who pay for their advertisements and publicity campaigns that do not give us a full picture of their failures as leaders, if you can call them leaders. They can only be called leaders at wasting our money and giving it away to big oil.

What is happening at the Senate anyway?
Why is there silence on that Nigel Wright guy?
Why haven't we heard about the audits on the entire crew in the big ship Lollipop--that is being sucked down to the stick by the senators?

What is the meaning of deMockracy?

It is ensuring that the fewest folks make the biggest profits on the backs of the majority of citizens.

Construction boss says he gave Housakos illegal donations

Related Stories

Conservative Senator Leo Housakos solicited tens of thousands of dollars' worth of questionable construction industry donations for a Quebec provincial party immediately prior to his appointment to the upper house in 2008, according to one of the star witnesses at the Quebec inquiry into municipal and provincial corruption.

Lino Zambito, a construction company owner who was one of the first to tell Quebec's Charbonneau commission about the elaborate kickback schemes set up between municipal and provincial politicians, engineers and construction bosses, now tells CBC News that he also gave money to Leo Housakos, who, Zambito says, approached him for a $30,000 political donation in the fall of 2008.

At the time, Housakos, a businessman and prominent member of Montreal's Greek community, was the head of fundraising for the now defunct Action Démocratique du Québec, the small "c" conservative party then led by Mario Dumont.

In the run-up to the provincial election in December 2008, the fledgling party was doing so well, said Zambito, that construction firms like his took notice and were prepared to pay to win favour.

Send tips or information on this story tobrigitte.noel@cbc.ca orjohn.nicol@cbc.ca.

Last week, a spokesperson for Housakos relayed to CBC News the senator's previous statement that he had never been involved in illegal fundraising. He declined to be interviewed on what we said were new allegations (without revealing what Zambito had told CBC News), saying through his spokesperson that he "wasn't interested in talking to smear merchants."

Since corporate donations are not allowed in Quebec, and the limit for personal donations was then set at $3,000 per contributor per party, Zambito says he had to use the illegal "prête-nom" system to come up with that kind of money. While never explicitly stated, he said he assumed Housakos knew the game.

Former construction boss Lino Zambito testifies before the Charbonneau inquiry probing corruption and collusion in Quebec's construction industry in October 2012. Zambito was the first to explain in detail the common practice of skirting the province's supposedly stringent political donations law. (Canadian Press)

"They all say 'Ah us, we took cheques, they're legal,'" said Zambito, adding he believes fundraisers were well aware of the system: "No one's going to make me believe they didn't know what was happening."

Many witnesses have now come forward to tell Judge France Charbonneau about the system whereby company executives would reimburse their staff, friends or family members for cheques that they would donate to political campaigns.

This "prête-nom" scheme was a way for companies to conceal an illegal corporate donation through a series of much smaller, seemingly legal contributions from different people.

"Could you raise me, from people you know, friends, raise me $30,000 of cheques," Zambito said of the fundraising requests

"Then it's your problem,do what you have to do."

The construction boss said he came up with between $20,000 and $25,000 in cheques for the ADQ that he handed off directly to Housakos on two separate deliveries in the fall of 2008, and then reimbursed his friends and employees.

He didn't make his $30,000 target, but he said Housakos was pleased with the sum.

Fundraising for Conservative

Zambito says he was also willing to pay for influence at the federal level, and says Housakos approached him to solicit funds for Claude Carignan, one of Harper's star candidates in the 2008 federal election.

Zambito recalled Housakos saying: "'Claude's running, he's a close friend of mine, could you help me out?'

"I go listen, how much do you want? He said, 'If you could give $3,000, I'll be happy.' So I asked my father, my mother, they both scratched a cheque for $1,100 each, I scratched a cheque and I gave it to him."

These donations were legal, but Zambito says he is a longtime Liberal. When asked why he would donate to the Tories, Zambito said he only paid because he thought Housakos had influence in Ottawa too, that he was "one of the main guys."

"It's scratch my back, I'll scratch yours," Zambito said.

Carignan lost that election but would later be named to the Senate, where he has recently been named government leader.

Longtime Tory

Housakos is no stranger to controversy. He told the CBC earlier this summer that he is "tired of this witch hunt for the last three, four, five years" — referring to media stories about him dating back to the start of the Harper government seven years ago.

Long-time political allies, Dimitri Soudas and Senator Housakos, shown here at a Commons committee in February 2008. (Canadian Press)

Housakos began making political contacts in the mid-1980s as a young Tory, and even ran for Harper's Alliance party in 2000.

He and a fellow Greek Montrealer, Dimitri Soudas, became involved with the Union Montreal party when Gérald Tremblay ran for mayor in 2001.

Longtime friends, Housakos and Soudas left the city within a year, and when Soudas got a job with the new Tory leader, Stephen Harper, in 2002, Housakos's network with the federal Tories broadened.

Less than three months after Harper became prime minister in January 2006, Housakos had a meeting with Public Works officials where he asked about Michael Rosenberg, a former Tory candidate whose firm RosDev was embroiled in a multi-million dollar lawsuit with the federal department over the management of two office buildings, according to a joint investigation by CBC News and the Globe and Mail in January 2008.

It was reported that Soudas, who was then the prime minister's deputy press secretary, also stepped in to try to resolve the RosDev file, an effort that landed him before Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson. (He was later absolved by her of any ethical breach or inappropriate pressure.)

Housakos told Radio-Canada that his role was to tell the government it would be good to help out a party supporter like Rosenberg. He also claimed he never asked Soudas to intervene on Rosenberg's behalf.

Also in 2006, both Housakos and Soudas met with officials of Alenia, an Italian aeronautics company interested in selling hardware to National Defence, at a Montreal restaurant. But Housakos said it was an innocent happenstance where Soudas was in town and dropped in on a meeting.

Housakos was not registered as a lobbyist, said he was never paid as one, and told the House of Commons committee he did not contravene any lobbying guidelines.

Their names came up again during the 2011 election campaign when news reports said that Tony Accurso, a prominent Montreal construction boss and Bernard Poulin, head of one of the biggest engineering firms in Quebec, wanted Housakos to get Soudas to promote former city official Robert Abdallah to run the Port of Montreal back in 2007.

The port's board members told reporters they were pressured during a dinner in Old Montreal, where Soudas promoted Abdallah as his choice candidate. When this story broke, Harper confirmed Abdallah had been the preferred candidate of the PMO, but said no pressure had been exercised and that their candidate did not get the job in the end. Housakos has denied any role in this matter.

Abdallah was not chosen for the position. He has since been accused, in unproven allegations before Charbonneau, of being involved in a kickback scheme during his time at the City of Montreal (2003-06).

Accurso has been arrested twice in the past two years and charged with a string of offences including tax evasion, fraud, conspiracy, influence-peddling, breach of trust and two counts of defrauding the government. He has gone to court to try to avoid testifying before the Charbonneau commission.

His name was also cited on redacted documents outlining the guest list of a private Montreal club because he attended what commission investigators called "events of interest" back in 2007 and 2008.

The inquiry under Justice France Charbonneau has transfixed Quebec with its many revelations between the construction industry, in particular, and provincial parties. (Canadian Press)

Commission investigators say Housakos's name was on the guest list along with people who have since faced allegations of wrongdoing at Charbonneau, including Paolo Catania, who runs a construction company that Charbonneau testimony has linked to the Sicilian mafia, and Bernard Trépanier, the municipal fundraiser dubbed "Mr. 3 Per Cent" for allegedly demanding cuts on city contracts.

Housakos's lawyer, Emmanuelle Saucier, has since written to the CBC to say that the senator's meetings at 357c can in no way whatsoever "be used to link our client to illegal activities."

The inquiry documents also seem to show that Housakos arranged a dinner party for the ADQ at the private club on June 21, 2007, while he was the party's chief of fundraising. Among the dozen guests, the only one whose name has not been redacted is construction boss Joseph Borsellino of Garnier construction, who has been accused at the commission of price-rigging municipal contracts.

"In this context, we see an entrepreneur who has been invited to a cocktail for the ADQ and we've seen the profile of Mr. Housakos," said Sgt. Erick Roy, one of the commission investigators, justifying why Housakos's name was included. "So we see links between business people and political financing that fall directly into the framework of our investigation."

Housakos took exception to this allegation, calling the event "a networking event to meet the business community."

"So that to me is false — it's erroneous," Housakos told reporters in June when this issue first arose.

"I don't know if he was at the club while I was at that event, but at no such time did I ever come across Joe Borsellino in 2007 and I have no reason to believe that Mr. Borsellino would have been present at any of my meetings or events."

As for the other meetings, Housakos protested: "How was I supposed to know [four years before] that some of those individuals would be charged with serious criminal offences and their names would appear on countless occasions being accused of doing very unsavoury things."

Housakos says he supports the Charbonneau commission, but told reporters he resents the idea that reporting on those meetings makes him guilty by association.

"Not everybody in the construction industry and engineering industry are crooked," Housakos said. "Not everybody in the fundraising processes of the political system break the rules."

The CBC requested an interview with Housakos on three separate occasions recently. Housakos declined our requests, while insisting he had not participated in any questionable fundraising.

His lawyer Saucier sent a letter cautioning the CBC to "respect its code of ethics" and "ensure the veracity of the facts and the accuracy of your sources (anonymous or not), and that the evidence can support the conclusions and judgments."

Send tips or information on this story to brigitte.noel@cbc.ca orjohn.nicol@cbc.ca.

*************************************************

Now ok, this may all be innocent but then I am of the curious sort.
Do our senators not have social contact with folks who aren't involved in accusations of corruption?
Do our senators do anything with ordinary citizens?
Or is it all rubbing the flesh of rich folks who are possibly using them and their contacts to further their own business dealings?

While we have bribes right left and center in Quebec (and possibly in every other province--if someone would be so good enough to yap about it)---the government of Canada ----is working hard to ensure that there is no bribery in other countries. Way to go federal government! WE JUST WANT BRIBERY IN CANADA!

Strengthening Canada’s Fight Against Foreign Bribery

February 5, 2013 - Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird today announced that the Harper government is taking further steps to combat corruption and bribery by tabling amendments to the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act in the Senate. He delivered the following remarks in Ottawa:

“Our government’s top priority is securing jobs, growth and long-term prosperity. In our international dealings, this takes many forms.

“It involves positioning Canada as a reliable supplier of the resources emerging markets need to grow.

“It involves pursuing an aggressive, pro-trade agenda.

“It involves creating the conditions for Canadian businesses to succeed.

“But our government also expects Canadian business to play by the rules.

“Canadian companies can compete with the best and win fairly.

“To signal our commitment and our expectation that other countries do the same, I am pleased to announce that our government is redoubling our fight against bribery and corruption.

“Today, reforms are being introduced in the Senate that will further deter and prevent Canadian companies from bribing foreign public officials. These amendments will help ensure that Canadian companies continue to act in good faith in the pursuit of freer markets and expanded global trade.

“Canada is a trading nation. Our economy and future prosperity depend upon expanding our trade ties with the world. This, we hope, is a good faith sign that Canada’s good name retains its currency.”

In 2008, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) established the International Anti-Corruption Unit, which is dedicated to raising awareness about and enforcing the CFPOA. To date, three companies have been convicted under the act, two cases are pending and there are 35 ongoing investigations under the CFPOA.

The proposed amendments to the act include the following:

Nationality jurisdiction: This amendment will make it easier for Canada to prosecute Canadians or Canadian companies for bribery in other countries, insofar as it will allow the Government of Canada to exercise jurisdiction over all persons or companies that have Canadian nationality, regardless of where the alleged bribery has taken place.

Eventual elimination of facilitation payments: The act currently states that payments made to expedite or secure the performance by a foreign public official of any act of a routine nature that is part of the foreign public official’s duties or functions do not constitute bribes. This amendment will eliminate the exception for facilitation payments and will come into effect at a later date to be set by Cabinet.

Exclusive ability to lay charges: This amendment will provide exclusive authority to the RCMP to lay charges under the act.

Clarifying the definition of “business”: This amendment removes the words “for profit” in the definition of business to ensure that the act applies to all business, regardless of whether profit is made.

Increasing the maximum penalty: Under the act, the foreign bribery offence is currently punishable by a maximum of five years’ imprisonment and unlimited fines. This amendment will increase the maximum jail term to 14 years.

Books and records offence: This amendment adds a new books and records of account offence into the act that is restricted in scope to the bribery of foreign public officials or hiding such bribery. This offence will now be punishable by a maximum of 14 years’ imprisonment and unlimited fines.

To date, there have been three convictions under the CFPOA:

Griffiths Energy International Inc. – Griffiths Energy International Inc., based in Calgary, Alberta, pleaded guilty on January 22, 2013, to a charge under the CFPOA related to securing an oil and gas contract in Chad. Griffiths will pay a total penalty of $10.35 million. For additional information, please consult the Agreed Statement of Facts filed with the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta.

Niko Resources Ltd. – Niko Resources Ltd. is a publicly traded company based in Calgary, Alberta. On June 24, 2011, the company entered a guilty plea for one count of bribery. The company admitted that, through its subsidiary Niko Bangladesh, it provided the use of a vehicle (valued at $190,984) in May 2005 to AKM Mosharraf Hossain, then the Bangladeshi State Minister for Energy and Mineral Resources, in order to influence the minister in his dealings with Niko Bangladesh. In June 2005, Niko Resources Ltd. paid travel and accommodation expenses for the same minister to travel from Bangladesh to Calgary to attend the GO EXPO oil and gas exposition, and paid approximately $5,000 for the minister to travel to New York and Chicago to visit his family.

As a result of the conviction, Niko Resources Ltd. was fined $9.5 million and placed under a probation order, which puts the company under the court’s supervision for three years to ensure that audits are completed to examine the company’s compliance with the CFPOA. The Canadian Trade Commissioner Service has placed a hold on providing services to Niko during the period of court supervision.

Hydro-Kleen Group Inc. – Hydro-Kleen Group Inc., based out of Red Deer, Alberta, entered a guilty plea on January 10, 2005, to one count of bribery and was ordered to pay a fine of $25,000. Along with its president and an employee, the company had been charged with two counts of bribing a U.S. immigration officer who worked at the Calgary International Airport. The charges against the director and the officer of the company were stayed. The U.S. immigration officer pleaded guilty in July 2002 to accepting secret commissions. He received a six-month sentence and was subsequently deported to the United States.

Well it is nice that the Tories are going to make foreign bribing a bigger issue than before but what about the bribing that is going on inside Canada?

Does anyone see a problem with the federal government concentrating on the bribing of folks outside of Canada and ignoring the corruption that seems endemic inside Canada's own borders--among its own elected officials---no less???
When will the federal government look at the problem of corruption--that has probably been flourishing since the Tories came to power in the federal government and certainly must be entrenched in Alberta---for where there is money--there is dirty money --and dirty behavior--such as bribes.

I'm just waiting for someone to yap about the corruption in Alberta ---to have what happened in Quebec--happen here but on a nuclear scale of revelations.

I mean think about it folks.
Where is the money from our Heritage Trust Fund?
Who benefited?
Who got our involuntary contributions to their net worth?

Canada is No Longer Mr. Clean

Corruption and scandal is becoming as common in Canada as hockey and snow

It’s safe to say that Canada’s reputation has taken a hit under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, particularly through his foreign and environmental policies. Now it seems our standing as a clean, polite and honest nation has taken a hit as well.

Canada has placed among the 10 least corrupt countries in the world for the past six years according to rankings by Transparency International. That clean streak is about to change.

The Canadian Senate, the Prime Minister’s Office, the opposition parties and the mayors of Canada’s two biggest cities have all been marred by controversy in the last month.

First off we have the senate expense scandal where four senators had been claiming private expenses on the public dime. The scandal has been made worse due to the departure of Harper’s chief of staff, Nigel Wright. Wright quit after the revelation he paid about $90,000 to Senator Mike Duffy to settle unentitled expenses.

Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party are polling at their lowest numbers in four years, the reason being the uncertainty of Harper’s role in the Duffy/Wright affair. In order to deflect attention away from his scandal plagued party, the Prime Minister’s Office with help from the media decided to share their misery.

The PMO leaked details to the press on how Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau had been charging fees to speak at charity events back when he was a simple MP. Charging speaking fees is not illegal and often benefits the charity, but this controversy seems to be revolving around the charities that lost money and received no refund from Trudeau.

Around the same time, CTV blew up a story which found NDP leader Tom Mulcair passing through a check point at the base of Parliament Hill without stopping. He then went through multiple stop signs while a patrol car followed.

Thankfully and mercifully the spring session of parliament came to a close last week. Any casual observer must be wondering how anything gets done in this country with all the scandal, controversy and mudslinging going on. You would think the House of Commons exists simply for MPs to poke fun at each other’s leaders, not to debate actual policy.

Not to be outdone by our politicians in Ottawa, our mayors have also become a demonstration of Canadian greed and fallacy. The whole world knows about Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s alleged crack smoking video. But while international coverage of the scandal has disappeared along with the video itself, the allegations continue to dog the mayor at every turn. Despite the seriousness of the allegations, Ford remains in office.

Where Toronto fails, Montreal succeeds. The mayor of my hometown, Michael Applebaum was arrested last week by Quebec’s anti-corruption unit and faces 14 charges including fraud, conspiracy, breach of trust and corruption.

Michael Applebaum

Applebaum’s arrest came just months after taking over for departed Mayor Gérald Tremblay who resigned following allegations of corruption in Quebec’s construction industry. Saulie Zajdel, who worked in a ministerial office for the federal Conservatives on ethnic outreach, was charged alongside Applebaum.

Canada’s squeaky clean image clearly isn’t what it used to be, or at least not what it should be. Politics in this country is normally boring and tedious, which it should be more often than not. Excitement in politics usually means someone has done something wrong; the House of Commons should not be on par with the latest television soap operas.

Canada’s image might be changing, most of all in our own eyes, but I have a feeling that south of the border not much will change. No matter what happens up here, it pales in comparison to what happens down there.

Our clean, polite reputation has survived down south due to the lack of attention they give us. For example, the floods in Calgary and Alberta managed to get about ten seconds of air time on CNN. I used to take offence on how the United States and other countries ignored us up here, but in light of the past month I’m starting to think it’s for the best.

CACL Canadian Corruption Rating by W B
Canada leads World Bank corruption list
More corrupt isn’t the kind of reputation Canada is looking for on the global stage.
Unfortunately, Canada leads on the World Bank’s running list of people and companies barred from receiving financing under its fraud and corruption policy.
As it stands today, Canada has the most new entries on the list, with the addition of 119 people and companies. All but two of those total entries are from SNC-Lavalin and affiliated companies, a World Bank spokesman said Wednesday.
That compares to 2012, when no Canadian companies were added to the list
SNC-Lavalin and related companies and individuals are banned from receiving World Bank-financed contracts for 10 years.
The United States ranked second on the list by number of people and firms, also with some SNC-Lavalin related companies, followed by Indonesia and Britain, the World Bank said.
James David Fielder, the World Bank’s manager of investigations, told the Financial Post that SNC-Lavalin’s ranking is the result of an investigation it conducted with the RCMP relating to the Padma Bridge Project in Bangladesh.
The World Bank pulled its $1.2-billion (U.S.) loan for the project amid corruption allegations.
On Wednesday, the Globe and Mail reported a former SNC Lavalin executive who oversaw construction of the bridge has been charged under Canada’s foreign bribery law. The RCMP charged two other SNC officials last year.
The World Bank has been cracking down on fraud and corruption related to its aid program.
The number of firms and individuals banned this year is four times the number for all of 2012.
It expects sanctions to increase as it continues to fight against the misappropriation of its resources.
“The World Bank means business. It’s ramping up in 2013 is a clear signal that it will not tolerate corruption or fraud,” Tim Coleman, a World Bank global investigations partner, told the South China Morning Post this week.
The international bank estimates about US$20 billion to $40 billion is stolen from developing countries each year, which it argues undermines economic growth.
It set up the Financial Market Integrity unit in 2001 to go after so-called “dirty money” and make the financial system more transparent.

This condemnation of Canada on the World Stage is indeed disheartening but it does go to show that CACL Canadian Anti Corruption League is on the right track in fighting corruption in Government and Industry. We have a very fast growing following but need to convert these followers into bona fide members to show the strength and INTEGRITY OF CANDAIANS.http://www.canadiananticorruptionleague.org is our web site also we are very strong on FaceBook. Sigh up for frequent news bulletins, talk to your friends and associates. How we are going to make a change is on our web site plus we want dialogue and suggestions. Soon we will become a Canadian Political Party, ( I dislike that term but it is the system)
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
The first country to tackle corruption in a serious and meaningful way will be the leader of the entire planet. Never doubt that others will follow and prosper in freedom and integrity.

Slick Water

Slick Water

Fracking and One Insider’s Stand Against the World’s Most Powerful Industry

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March for our Lives

How is one reborn after a fall? by Muriel Barbery

14. From Passageway to Pathway

What is this war we are waging, when defeat is so certain? Day after day, already wearied by the constant onslaught, we face our terror of the everyday, the endless passageway that, in the end--because we have spent so much time walking to and fro between its walls---will become a destiny. Yes, my angel, that is our everyday existence:dreary, empty, and mired deep in troubles. The pathways of hell are hardy foreign; we shall end up there one day if we tarry too long. From passageway to pathway; it is an easy fall, without shock or surprises. Every day we are reacquainted with the sadness of the passageway and step by step we clear the path towards our mournful doom.Did he see the pathways? How is one reborn after a fall? What new pupils restore sight to scorched eyes? Where does war begin, where does combat end?